


chest out, just like a soldier

by oldbooksandnutella



Category: Quantum Break (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-01 01:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6495067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oldbooksandnutella/pseuds/oldbooksandnutella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a slightly more slashy reimagining of jack and paul's "handcuffs & villainous monologue" scene</p>
            </blockquote>





	chest out, just like a soldier

**Author's Note:**

> i'm so trash for this video game holy shit  
> (there has to be at least 1 other person on the internet willing to read fic for quantum break right???)  
> #noregrets
> 
>  
> 
> **jack uses some uncomfortably ableist mental-illness-coded language in this fic while talking about old!paul. most of it is canon to the game. please note that i don't condone these epithets, and i understand they can be triggering or otherwise unpleasant for neurodivergent people (myself included). as much as i love readers, i would advise skipping this fic if this is a serious concern for you.**
> 
>  
> 
> (also, please note that a good three-quarters of the dialogue in this fic was blatantly stolen from episode 2 of the qb tv show's 'personal' option. all credit to the creators!)

Jack Joyce has never particularly enjoyed being handcuffed, in all his limited experience thus far: various drunk-and-disorderlies in his early twenties, a couple of scary run-ins with the Shanghai mob, and one extremely memorable (read: scarring) incident with a high school ex-girlfriend. Thus far, his stint being held captive by his ex-best-friend is proving to be no exception.

There's probably a witty one-liner out there perfectly suited to this occasion. Will would have known it, probably.

Will - Jack's chest clenches. His _brother_. Killed by some psycho version of Jack's best friend since childhood. Some part of him is hoping that this is all some weird Twilight Zone dream; that he'll wake up any moment now, and things will be back to how they were before. But that hope is fading fast.

Jack only barely manages to compose himself when, after an excruciating half-hour of waiting, there's a noise at the door. 

Jack does his best to maintain a poker face as Paul strides into his cell, king-like, but he's pretty sure a fair amount of hatred and betrayed confusion show through.  

Paul looks at him for a second, lips pursed and eyes carefully blank, before he speaks.

"The second machine; where is it?" 

In his seat, Jack shrugs, belligerent. "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

Paul sighs, looks down, leans back in his chair. He's wearing the same suit as when Jack saw him earlier: some kind of shiny grey material, with a slightly darker shirt underneath. He looks like a shark, which is fitting. 

"I've been to the past," Paul says abruptly. "I've tried to change things, undo mistakes. Only to find there's no changing the inevitable.  Time is just one closed loop." He's smiling slightly, in that _I'm-smarter-than-you-but-I'll-do-my-best-to-explain-anyways_ way he's always had. Jack has never found it more infuriating. "No matter what I do, you and I, we always end up here." Paul leans forward. "And no matter what I do, time ends."

Jack inclines his head slightly to the left, like he's about to ask a question, but when he finally speaks his voice is as cold and hard as he can make it.

"I think you've lost your fucking mind."

Across from him, Paul purses his lips.

"My mind is intact, I assure you. My memory, however..." Paul shakes his head slightly, pulling his lower lip partway into his mouth. It's an incongruously young gesture on his middle-aged face.

"It's... stretched, like I've seen too much, all of it blending into one apart from a few fragments of memories."

Without any conscious instruction, Jack feels his head tilting back slightly. Okay, so this Paul is crazier than he'd thought.

Across from him, Paul is still talking, eyes fixed unflinchingly on Jack. 

"One in particular. You and I - we're eleven or twelve years old. When we found that vagrant. Remember?"

Jack's eyes flicker downwards without his permission as he tries vainly to suppress a shudder. Yes, he remembers.

"When I arrived in the past, that was the first thing I tried to change," Paul says. "I went to the roof; I tried to talk him down."

"But my presence startled him and he fell, same as before. Anything I try to change, it just triggers the same event. And we keep seeing that body." Paul smiles grimly. "'Cause we were meant to."

Jack's eyes have dipped to the cheap interrogation table again.

"I'm not turning my back on the human race," Paul is saying now, in his politician's voice. "But at this point, they're a necessary sacrifice."

"That's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," Jack spits, eyes back on the psychopath across from him.

Paul's face betrays a bare flicker of emotion.

"Is that what I am to you now, Jack? Disgusting?" he asks, leaning forward.

Jack barely restrains himself from spitting in the bastard's face. 

"You killed my fucking brother."

There it is again - that flicker of emotion.

"Will was... an obstacle, regrettably. He refused to believe in the inevitability of what was coming."

Paul leans in further. His eyes are less guarded, now, and Jack can see the sadness in them. "Believe me, Jack, Will was like a brother to me too. I know the pain you're feeling."

"You _caused_ the pain I'm feeling."

Paul sighs heavily. It's a cross between genuine emotion and the sigh he reserves for particularly stubborn potential investors. "I couldn't let Will jeopardize the lifeboat. He would have ruined everything, Jack: Monarch, the machine, the future of humanity. I've seen it all happen. And it was hard, but eventually, I made the right choice.  I couldn't save him, but I can still save you."

"Fat fucking chance, asshole."

Paul's mouth quirks, amused, but his eyes are far, far away.

"You know, you were always what I missed the most, Jack," he says, voice wistful. "iPhones; my parents; self-serve frozen yogurt ...you were the worst loss. Of course, I kept tabs on you from afar, but I could never get too close - the risks were too high."

Jack can feel himself tensing up even more. He's furious, and scared, of course, but there's also a weird sense of something like nostalgia throbbing like an open wound in his chest. 

Paul must get some inkling of this from Jack's expression, because he continues, his face still unbearably close, "I loved you, you know. I still do. And all these years, I've been wondering - was it really all so one-sided?"

With no warning, his hands come up to frame Jack's face, and suddenly Paul is kissing him, frantic and deep and dirty. The second after their lips touch, Jack's mouth goes slack with shock, and Paul takes advantage of the opportunity to lick his way into Jack's mouth. It's fast, and frantic, and desperate, and with his eyes closed, Jack can almost pretend it's  _his_ Paul he's kissing - the Paul from yesterday, from so many years ago.  

As awareness of the past day's events floods back into him, Jack's jaw closes like a trap, and when Paul pulls back from the kiss, he's wearing a rueful smile and a bloody cut on his lower lip.

"It was so good to see you again," he says, caressing Jack's face with one hand as he stands up from his chair. "When you're ready to cooperate, I'll be here."

When Beth saves Jack fifteen minutes later, she does him the courtesy of ignoring his shell-shocked expression and the smudge of drying blood on the corner of his mouth.

 

**Author's Note:**

> title from "south" by hippo campus


End file.
